Whatever happened to colored toilet paper?

One of our patrons remembered the days when toilet paper came in pastel shades of pink, yellow, green, and blue to match the bathroom décor. One day, though, he noticed that it had disappeared from the shelves. According to the blog on ToiletPaperWorld.com, Scott was one of the last holdouts, and it produced its last beige, blue, and pink rolls in 2004.

People have a few different explanations for why companies stopped making the pastel paper. Jenny Achiam on the style blog Into the Gloss remembers her doctor telling her that some of the cheaper dyes caused allergic reactions. Larry Waldbillig on the blog History’s Dumpster remembers hearing that the dyes were harming the environment, though he never heard of any proof. (Indeed, in the question-and-answer column “The Last Word” in a 2004 issue of New Scientist, someone wrote in to ask if colored toilet paper was less environmentally-friendly than the white. The answer was no, because such small amounts of dye were used, and because the dye bonded to the paper, preventing it from accumulating in the environment and from rubbing off on people’s skin.) Finally, it may simply have gone out of style. The color-matched bathroom was trendiest from the 1950’s to the 1970s, which was also when the pastel paper was most popular.

Don’t despair, though, because colored toilet paper is still around! Though it may not be on supermarket shelves, it can be ordered from several places online. Cabela’s offers toilet paper in camo patterns, and Mill’s Fleet Farm has it in hunter’s orange. Renova produces colored toilet paper favored by exclusive night clubs, upscale boutiques, and, according to gossip magazines and Keeping Up with the Kardashians, celebrities like Beyonce and Kris Jenner. Its black roll even received a write-up in the New York Times in 2006.

On a final note, we found an article in a 2012 issue of Library Journal about a New York library that was using toilet paper with advertisements printed on it. Unfortunately, Star Toilet Paper, the company that provided the paper, is now closed down.